On keeping up good relations with the U.S.

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By Janne Virkkunen
     
      The former President of the United States Bill Clinton was at a seminar in Tampere last Tuesday, delivering a keynote address on global security issues and the future. Clinton is spending his retirement in the familiar pursuit of elder statesmen, namely speaking at events such as this, and collecting a handsome paycheck for doing so.
      One thing that can be said for Clinton is that he does know Finland, since he made his first landfall here as a Rhodes scholar and tourist in 1969, and was in Helsinki again in March 1997, meeting Russian leader Boris Yeltsin.
      This time around in Tampere, Clinton had no headline-grabbing message to put across, but nonetheless it is intriguing that such a world-class public speaker did not manage to sell out even half of the available seats in Tampere Hall.
     
It is a worthwhile question to ask what kept the public away. Was it the price of the tickets? Hardly.
      Is it that the Finns are simply not interested in the two-term 42nd President of the United States, whom this newpaper's former Washington correspondent Tomi Ervamaa described in a recent profile as one of that country's greatest occupants of the White House?
      Or could it be that the United States simply no longer holds enough interest for the Finns to merit their attendance?
     
Things were very different just under twenty years ago, when the then U.S. President Ronald Reagan had no trouble at all in filling Finlandia Hall in Helsinki for a foreign policy address on human rights.
      The listeners could only admire the skills demonstrated by the "great communicator" of the time. Reagan delivered a first-class performance and in so doing helped us to understand why he was so popular at home.
      Something significant has happened to the Finns and also to many others in Western Europe, since interest towards the United States really does seem to be on the wane.
      Whereas Finland used to be referred to as "the most Americanised country in Europe", nowadays in international studies the Finns are among the front-runners when respondents are asked whether the United States represents a threat to world peace.
     
There is absolutely no reason to underestimate the significance for us of the United States.
      Without a doubt, the US has always been an important country for Finland. The might of the superpower as the leader of the West also safeguarded for this country a slightly freer position during the Cold War era, when Finland was doggedly building contacts with the West while nestled up against an expansionist superpower to the East.
      Then, too, what was uppermost in those years was the struggle to sustain a position of neutrality and to have it recognised in the West.
      President Urho Kekkonen made an official visit to Washington DC already in 1961, during the term of John F. Kennedy. Kekkonen was also a guest of Richard Nixon in the White House nine years later. President Mauno Koivisto, for his part, met Ronald Reagan formally in Washington in 1983.
      There was no need to demonstrate President Martti Ahtisaari's strong connections with the United States in the form of an official visit, and at least officially no visit is on the agenda for the current President, Tarja Halonen.
     
Martti Ahtisaari has been the most West-leaning of Finland's heads of state, and this fact has not gone unnoticed on the other side of the Atlantic. The mediation in June 1999 that led to the ending of the NATO bombings in Kosovo, and Ahtisaari's current role in determining the final status of Kosovo are two things that would never have happened without the unreserved trust and approval of the United States.
      In some sense it seems right now as though carrying on normal relations with the United States is somehow difficult for the Finns.
      Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen has not visited Washington, even though many other government ministers, from Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja on down, have done so.
      At the same time, it has to be said that relations with the United States among the top echelons of the Finnish Defence Forces are good.
     
It may be that the fundamental reason for that certain sense of neglect visible in the development of Finnish-American relations is the awkward stance that Finnish politicians - and Finns in general - have towards the NATO alliance. Finland is building the most close and cordial relations with NATO, and yet without becoming a member.
      Similarly, the Finnish perceptions of the current incumbent of the White House George W. Bush are nothing much to write home about.
      There are plenty of sound explanations for this, too. And yet it all started out well enough. The war in Afghanistan that was launched in the wake of the World Trade Center bombings was generally approved of by the politicians, and the coalition's military expedition also enjoyed the almost unreserved support of the population at large.
     
The war in Iraq was a clear turning point. Finns did not accept a war for which no justification - in the shape of the clear and present danger of weapons of mass destruction - could be found. But a cruel dictator was removed from power, which is a good thing.
      The images coming out of the Abu Ghraib gaol showing abuse and torture of prisoners have also adversely influenced Finnish attitudes, together with the newsreel images and press articles on the conditions at the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp in Cuba. Guantanamo, where the Americans say they are holding terrorists, is by the yardstick of normal Western values a cause of considerable shame.
     
It is a great pity that the actions of the present U.S. government are only serving to reinforce the negative views the Finns have towards the country.
      The United States is a vast state with all the attendant internal problems huge states have.
      And yet it remains without a doubt the world's most powerful nation, and one with whom affairs must be attended to, even if we do not happen to care for its leaders or their policies.
      It is sad that the current American administration makes the act of liking and defending the United States difficult also for those Finns who have a basic sympathy towards the country that rescued Europe twice during the last century - first from fascism and then from communism.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 14.5.2006
     
The writer is the editor-in-chief of Helsingin Sanomat


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Prime Minister admits to "moderately long" gap in high level USA visits (15.5.2006)
  Bill Clinton speaks about major grievances and shortcomings worldwide in Tampere (10.5.2006)

JANNE VIRKKUNEN / Helsingin Sanomat
janne.virkkunen@hs.fi